After the whirlwind IVF cycle and anticipation of awaiting the outcome, life seems to have settled back into a steady (and rather pedestrian) rhythm.

Thus far, L’s pregnancy has been very uneventful. Some of the earlier symptoms, like nausea and cramping, have subsided more-or-less completely. The fatigue and swollen/sore breasts continue. Note: I’ll refrain from any editorial comments on the “swollen” part as that seems inappropriate to speak of someone’s mother as such. Note #2: A female friend / colleague of L’s did comment on her suddenly more ample cleavage yesterday: she wondered if L had a “boob job.” Note #3: Really, this isn’t a bad side effect. Enough said. Sorry. I’ll say no more.

Of course, we hadn’t really told anyone about our struggles with infertility either. We made the decision to wait for a few reasons. We’re certainly not embarrassed by infertility. It’s just that we’re fairly private people (by nature, despite evidence of this blog to the contrary) who lead fairly public lives (by profession). As such, we didn’t want to have to make a lot of small talk about the status of fertility treatment.

On a more personal level, we didn’t want to involve our families, because we realized a couple of things. First, it would simply add stress to their lives (which in turn would add stress to our lives). Second, there’s nothing they’d be able to do to help resolve the situation. So, in the end, we opted to spare everyone the grief.

We intend to execute the “public relations campaign” once we get past the ultrasound, starting with our families and closest friends.